


In These Bodies We Will Live (In These Bodies We Will Die)

by Bluebox_Parchment



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Abaddon!Dean, Destiel - Freeform, M/M, Mark of Cain, Possessed Dean, Season/Series 09, how i'd end season 9, not a happy fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-06
Updated: 2014-03-06
Packaged: 2018-01-14 19:18:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,570
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1277836
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bluebox_Parchment/pseuds/Bluebox_Parchment
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Abaddon paces against the edge of the elaborate Devil's Trap. There are sigils staining every available surface, trapping the Knight completely.</p><p>Cas can't help but notice the similarities. The symbols sprayed over every surface, the rattling wind against the steel roof... all it needs is for the lights to blow, for the demon blade to be rammed through his chest and it'd be just like old times...</p><p>"Got some pretty interesting things swirling around up here," Abaddon says, tapping at the side of Dean's head. "Couple things about Crowley - always been a traitorous letch though why I'm surprised..." She shakes Dean's head and drawls, "But it's the things he thinks about you..." Poison drips from Dean's tongue and it sounds so wrong. "It's all just so impure."</p><p>--</p><p>Lend me your hand and we'll conquer them all,<br/>But lend me your heart and I'll just let you fall.<br/>Lend me your eyes I can change what you see,<br/>But your soul you must keep, totally free.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In These Bodies We Will Live (In These Bodies We Will Die)

It had been Sam's idea: Cas would tackle the issue with Abaddon whilst he went and stabbed an angel blade through Metatron's face from the pair of them. Cas had argued initially; he had a score to settle with Metatron, but eventually he'd conceded. Heaven against Hell; Humanity against Heaven.  
  
It made sense, they'd agreed. Cas was an angel again these days and though once upon a time he might have played fast and loose with the lives of the Winchesters, there was now far too much at risk. They wouldn't leave Sam's fate in Dean's largely unreliable hands. Which is to say _Sam_ wouldn't leave his fate in Dean's hands any longer. That ship had sailed the night Gadreel had burnt the life out of Kevin Tran's eyes and Sam had had to sit idly by and watch his own body kill a kid he had called brother.  
  
Sure, Kevin had absolved him of any fault but if Cas knew Sam, and he liked to think these days he had a pretty good grasp on the youngest Winchester, then he knew - forgiveness from Kevin or not - the Prophet's death still weighed heavily on Sam's mind. He also knew it was likely Sam would carry that guilt for years, just another cross to bare on shoulders that still hefted the remnants of demon blood, Lucifer and the apocalypse.  
  
No, the duty of ending Abaddon would fall to Cas and Cas alone. It was labelled under the guise that Cas would be able to take out Abaddon far more easily than Sam would. After all, angel's are cold and they're detached, regardless of a short stint at humanity.  
  
And Cas... well it's not like he hadn't had the practice.  
  
A thousand times over in fact.  
  
Sam had headed out in the Impala with Crowley - Crowley of _all_ people. They'd traded off Cain's blade to Cas, and they were heading five hours south east to Parsons, Kansas, where Malachi had amassed his angel army and were planning on taking down Metatron's own. It was going to be brutal, but if it all went well, they had the necessary ingredients to reverse the Scribe's spell and restore the angels to heaven.   
  
It helped that they had a hidden ace up their sleeves. Gadreel was an untrustworthy ally, but he had whole heartedly shrugged out of Metatron's clutches. Not that the aforementioned angel had any idea, though there was still time for the half cocked plan to go terribly wrong.  
  
But Cas knew it would succeed. He had faith in Sam. The thought brought him a strange sense of comfort. He may no longer have faith in his Father or the angels, but he'd found faith in a brother. Even one that had been born for Lucifer.  
  
Cas had laid the trap for Abaddon in an abandoned barn close to the bunker and waited. And the Knight of Hell didn't disappoint.  
  
Abaddon paces against the edge of the elaborate Devil's Trap, that's reinforced by Enochian scrawled in angel blood. Dirty, but it'll do the trick. There are sigils staining every available surface, trapping the Knight completely.

Briefly, Cas can't help but notice the similarities. The symbols sprayed over every surface, the rattling wind against the steel roof... all it needs is for the lights to blow, for the demon blade to be rammed through his chest and it'd be just like old times...  
  
"Hello Dean," Cas says.  
  
Abaddon snaps Dean's head up like he's a marionette. "Uh uh uh! Just little old me in here." Abaddon hums and shrugs. "Well, Dean's rattling around somewhere but..." And though it's Dean's eyes that looks Cas up and down, leering at him, he knows that it's not. There's another flash of black coating those green eyes.  
  
"Got some pretty interesting things swirling around up here," Abaddon says, tapping at the side of Dean's head. "Couple things about Crowley - always been a traitorous letch though why I'm surprised..." She shakes Dean's head and drawls, "But it's the things he thinks about _you_..." Poison drips from Dean's tongue and it sounds so wrong.  
  
Yet so familiar.  
  
The air reeks of sulphur and there's black coiled around Dean's core and pouring from his eyes. Too familiar.  
  
"It's all just so impure," Abaddon says, drawing out the last word and twisting Dean's mouth into an obscene smile. "So _very_ impure and about an _angel_ to boot. Thoughts like these will send you straight to hell."  
  
Cas scowls; a gasping memory of the screams of the Pit bolts through his mind. If his Grace were still his own, he feels sure he'd remember the way they tore at him. He stares at the blown black in Dean's eyes and his chest aches.  
  
"Funny," Abaddon says. "I threatened him with torture. I thought I'd gotten to dear old Dean. Turns out I was just tempting him." She flexes Dean's fingers then taps at the invisible edge of the Trap. "When we broke those bodies, he tried to fight me at first." A sickening grin twists across his face, illuminates the black in his eyes. "But after a while he just gave into it. Stopped fighting what he really is."  
  
And that feels like a punch to the stomach because he'd promised him. He'd sung praises of the Lord and soothed the smoke from Dean's soul and he had promised him never again. "Dean," Cas says, a note of warning in his voice.  
  
"Did you not hear me angel?" Abaddon asks, a sudden bubble of anger popping at the surface of her collected demeanour. "He's not here." Dean, no, _Abaddon_ , taps against the invisible forcefield again. "Now be a dear and let me out."  
  
A slight shrug of his shoulders and Cas begins to chant Enochian. The air in the room picks up and gusts about like wind, the dirt blows along the floor, sticks in the tacky blood smeared across the tiles. And then Abaddon starts to laugh. Great howls that almost sound like Dean but are foreign to Cas' ears.  
  
"Bless your little heart Castiel," Abaddon says, and that turns Cas' stomach. Dean hasn't called him that in years. It sends ice down his grace. "You thought I'd give up Dean's body that easily? You reckon it's _that easy_ to exorcise a Knight even _with_ your Enochian?" She pulls up Dean's shirt sleeve then and exposes the patch of arm that was once burned by angel grace... by _his_ grace.  
  
Now there's an ugly brand marring Dean's arm, gouged and scarred and burnt to his skin, an intricate mess of a sigil. A binding sigil.  
  
"There are a few more of them," Abaddon says gleefully. "I don't intend to give up this vessel, well, at all. So you could heal them away, _Cas_. Or at the least you could try. But I highly doubt you'd get all of them before I had the chance to use this." And out comes the angel blade then. "One thing I really do love about these Winchester boys you know. They come with decent hardware."  
  
Cas takes a second and calculates. He could make the move - get a hand on Dean and heal him of the brands but then what? He doesn't have backup. Sam is most definitely preoccupied with reversing Metatron's spell and he'd rather die that beg Crowley to leave Sam and help him instead. This was stupid. They should never have split their focus and energies. They should've prioritised.  
  
Cause what's the point in healing Dean if Abaddon's just going to catch him in the grace with a blade.  
  
Cas paces around the edge of the Devil's Trap and Abaddon watches his every move. She laughs that laugh again but Cas keeps pacing. There's a heavy weight nestled against his side, tucked up inside the borrowed trenchcoat that doesn't fit like the old one. The trenchcoat that's a little too large and wrinkles uncomfortably under the arms where it's been poorly tailored to his body's needs; a little like the borrowed Grace in a way.  
  
When he stops, he withdraws the blade from inside his coat. It's ugly, made from the jawbone of some long dead animal. Abaddon doesn't seem all that surprised that he's got it, it was probably rattling around inside Dean's head when she possessed him. "Don't insult me," Abaddon says. "Even if you could weild the blade to full power, don't bother threatening to kill Dean. We both know you don't have it in you." She twists his face into a horrific grin. "Not like you haven't tried before. Thrown a fair few punches at this pretty pretty face. Huh-" she cocks his head to one side and taps at his temple. "Well what do you know? Dean reckons you'll do it, without the slightest hesitation."  
  
Cas shifts the blade around in his hand, tries to get used to the weight of it. "I'm sorry Dean."  
  
"I said don't _insult me_!" Abaddon shouts and pounds Dean's fist against the edge of the trap.  
  
Cas raises the blade and presses it to the side of his neck. It's cold and it pinches, it's rough edge prickling pain against his skin. He feels suddenly woozy.  
  
"What are you doing?" Abaddon screams, clawing at the edge of the trap. But there's a strained edge to her voice, almost like... almost like-  
  
"Dean, it's fine," Cas says, his fingers slipping in the blood trickling from the knife wound. But the wooziness intensifies and that's when he catches sight of the blue-white glow of grace slowly drifting out of his body.  
  
Abaddon shrinks away from it. But her movements are jerky and stilted, like she can't quite control Dean's limbs properly any longer.  
  
"I said, it's fine Dean," Cas repeats. He can feel the grace slowly disappearing from his core. There are aches in strange places again. It's a tell tale feeling that his plan is working. His head swims.  
  
Dean stumbles a little, falls heavily against the edge of the Trap, drops to his knees. The angel blade rolls out of his hands with a ringing clatter.  
  
And there it is, that desperate, _desperate_ , " _Cas_?!" and it's not Abaddon saying it.  
  
Dean pushes against the edge of the Trap, his claws his fingers down it and screams Cas' name again.  
  
Cas drops to the floor, the draining grace leaving him nauseous and light headed. Dean punctures every low registering thump of his fists against the forcefield with Cas' name. Over and over and over again.  
  
Cas looks up at him and crawls closer to the Trap until he's right up next to it, careful not to touch the tacky bloodwork. Dean strains closer, tries to reach out and grab hold of him but only manages to ask, "Why? Why would you?"  
  
Cas touches his neck again, trying to stem the steady trickle of blood. His eyes soften. "I'd rather be human," he says with a shrug. Like it's no big deal. Like it's not monumental. Like he hasn't just given up on eons of angelhood to live and breathe and die human.  
  
"You can't beat her," Dean growls, clawing at the skin of his own neck. And the black eyes are back and Abaddon grins wickedly. "You can't beat me," she echoes. "You wouldn't kill me as an angel and there's no way you can beat me now that you're human. You're _nothing_."  
  
"I didn't do it to beat her," Cas says, addressing Dean again. "I did it because -" He pauses, weighs up the words on his tongue like they might be bullets. A flash of memory of a moonlit crypt with a dusty floor, the sound of Dean's bones breaking under his hands, the splatter of his blood in the dirt like constellations. _We're family. We need you. I need you._ "I make my choice," Cas says finally. "You're my family."  
  
Abaddon giggles.  
  
"I need you too, Dean."  
  
Abaddon slams against the Trap again.  
  
The black seeps from Dean's eyes and he gasps for breath. Breath that's oxygen not sulphur.  
  
This time Cas gets a hand to him, cups his blood soaked hand to the side of Dean's face and it's a mocking callback to that crypt again. Except this time there's no tablet and no Naomi. No way to press his grace against Dean's skin and spark it through his veins to knit the blemishes back together.  
  
Dean's blunt nails scrape against Cas' wrist and he pulls him in closer. Pulls him over the Trap and inside the circle of angel blood. " _Cas._ "  
  
And he may not be an angel anymore but he knows it's not Abaddon. He knows it in the way that he knows the way light fractures and burns brightest at the centre of a black hole. He knows it in the way that he knows that on average it takes 59.8945 seconds for every blood cell in Dean's body to circulate once. He knows it in the way that he knows the way angels are made from ice and love and wrath and songs of exultation to their Father.  
  
Dean presses his mouths to Cas', hands still gripping at his wrists fiercely.  
  
Cas registers a small moment of doubt, of surprise, before he kisses back. Dean is solid and warm to his touch. Once, Cas might've been able to see the neurons firing in off in Dean's brain, he might've been able to hear the rush of blood chasing through Dean's veins, he might've felt the warm glow of Dean's soul under his fingertips.  
  
But Cas finds that this is better. The visceral feel of his own pounding heart, the electric tingle skittering around his knuckles, the light airy feeling swooping in his gut. The etching of stubble against Dean's jaw that's rough against his open palm, the prickle of the tiny hairs on the back of Dean's neck, the softness of his warm mouth against his.  
  
He's careful and attentive, kisses Dean desperately and without fear and it's easy to forget the depth of the shit they're currently in. It's easy to push it to one side and loose himself to this because it's been a long time coming, filled with lingering gazes, touches and words never quite spoken but often just waiting in the air.  
  
A blast of cold air rips through the room and through the grime laden window the dark sky is alight. The glow of Heaven cracked in two reflects off Dean's green eyes.  
  
Cas has a brief moment of thought, a swell of triumph because Sam did it, he reversed Metatron's spell. The angels were going home.  
  
"M'sorry Cas," Dean says and Cas doesn't quite understand.  
  
There's a knife in Dean's hands.  
  
 _The_ knife.  
  
Still stained in angel blood and the dregs of grace.  
  
Cas jerks wildly. Tries to get his hands to Dean's. Tries to stop him. Tries tries tries.  
  
But Dean's already rammed it into his gut, up and in, twisted it. His eyes flash black before the ink fades completely. His skin crackles with lightning. There's a half smile playing on his bloody mouth as he slumps sideways.  
  
"Dean?" And he knows it's useless, knows it's pointless. Knows there's no way to try and stem the blood flow. Knows there's no grace left in him to even try and piece Dean back together again.  
  
"Dean?"  
  
He didn't fall for humanity.  
  
He didn't fall for this.  
  
"Dean?"  
  
Nothing.


End file.
